Patients whose lives are at risk are being turned away from their local hospitals because of a lack of intensive care beds, doctors who work in those units have revealed. Four in five intensive care units (ICUs) are having to send patients to other hospitals as a result of chronic bed and staff shortages. Units are so beleaguered that some may no longer be able to care properly for the NHS’s sickest patients, the leader of the intensive care speciality has warned. “These findings reveal a range of very serious concerns about widespread understaffing and lack of beds in intensive care across the NHS. • 79% of intensive care consultants think patients’ quality of care can suffer due to ICU understaffing.

Source: The Guardian March 07, 2018 17:42 UTC